Staff Reporter:
Transparency International US and Transparency International Bangladesh have said the U.S. can show its genuine partnership by playing a proactive role in helping the people of Bangladesh to recover the assets that rightly belong to them and that are so desperately needed to rebuild its future.
They have written to the US Secretary of State and US Secretary of the Treasury seeking urgent action to support a transparent, accountable, inclusive, and democratic future for Bangladesh.
In their letter to Secretary Anthony Blinken and Secretary Janet Yellen, Transparency International U.S Executive Director Gary Kalman and TIB Executive Director Iftekhar Zaman said as a long-standing partner of Bangladesh, the U.S. can offer timely support at this crucial time in Bangladesh’s history.
They called upon the U.S. government to provide critical support to the interim Bangladeshi government to address corruption and money laundering in the following ways:
1 The U.S. government can investigate whether any assets looted by any Bangladeshi individual or com-pany are recoverable property in the U.S. and act swiftly to impose property and account freezing orders as the first step to facilitate their forfeiture and repatriation to Bangladesh and hold the perpetrators to account.
2 The U.S. government could offer expertise, including from forensic accountants, lawyers and law en-forcement to support reforms and capacity building of Bangladesh’s relevant institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission, Financial Intelligence Unit, Criminal Investigation Department, National Board of Revenue and Attorney General’s Office, so that they can identify stolen assets, build a robust evidence base for freezing these assets, and facilitate swift law enforcement action to recover them.
3 The U.S. government could work with the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia, EU, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and UAE (particularly Dubai), and with the interim government, and in-country experts, including civil society within Bangladesh, to identify key targets for imposing financial sanc-tions and visa bans.
To further geopolitical and economic objectives, the U.S. has built close ties with Bangladesh, reads the letter dated September 10.
The U.S. is its largest foreign investor and largest export country destination.
The U.S. relies on Bangladesh to assist with regional security efforts and efforts to counter terrorism, they said.
As such, in recent years, the U.S. has strongly supported efforts to move Bangladesh toward a more open and democratic society, engaging a variety of tools from trade incentives to sanctions of corrupt public officials.
